Guides:Damage System
This page is still in draft form. Hit Points Ships in EVE have three wells of hit points: shield, armor, and structure (or hull). When a ship begins receiving damage, damage is dealt to the shield first. If the ship's shield is depleted, damage is then dealt to the ship's armor. If armor is depleted, damage then goes to structure. If a ship is reduced to 0 structure it explodes, destroying the ship and most of the modules equipped on it. While damage is being dealt to the armor and hull, the shield is recharging. Though it only recharges a small amount at a time on its own, you can increase you regenerative time by mounting shield boosters. Damage Types and Resistances There are four damage types: * Electromagnetic * Thermal * Kinetic * Explosive Damage to shields or armor is reduced by that subsystem's resistance to that type of damage before being applied. For example, consider a ship with 500 shield points and 60% shield resistance to explosive damage. If that ship were to be hit with 150 points of explosive damage (from a Havoc Heavy Missile, for instance), that ship's new shield total would be 500 - ( ( 1 - .6 ) * 150 ) = 440. Signatures and Tracking Turrets each have a tracking speed (expressed in radians/second) and a signature resolution (expressed in meters). A ship has a signature radius (expressed in meters), and in motion relative to another ship, it has a transverse velocity (expressed in meters/second). These values relate to determine whether a shot hits or not, and how much damage it does. Signature resolution is how large a circle the turrets can control their fire within, and signature radius is how large a circle a ship represents as a target. If they match, or the signature is larger than the resolution, every shot will hit the target. If the signature is smaller than the resolution, shots will miss proportionally to the difference in area. For example, a 1m signature radius has Ï€*1m*1m area, or almost 10 meters. A 2m signature resolution means a Ï€*2m*2m area, or a little over 12 meters. Therefore, one in six shots will miss. Tracking is more complicated, in that it involves angles and motion around a sphere in 3d space. In these examples, assume that Alice's ship is being orbited by Bob, and we're viewing the numbers from Alice's perspective. Alice's turrets can track Ï€/2 radians/second, which means they can move in a quarter-circle during a one second period, or expressed differently, point at anything in a hemisphere centered on where they currently point. If Bob is where Alice's turrets are currently pointing, the turrets can hit him. If he moves within the hemisphere, the turrets will be able to hit him with under a second of tracking. If he moves outside this hemisphere, the turrets will take more than one second to track to him. This gets complicated when Bob starts moving. The turrets will try and chase him, but if he can orbit angularly faster than they can track, they will always miss. Assume that Bob is at 5km and orbiting. The circle he travels on is 5km*Ï€ long, or just over 15,000 meters. He is moving at 5000m/s, or is traveling right around a third of an orbit every second. Since Alice's turrets can move a quarter-circle every second, and this is smaller than Bob's third of a circle, Bob won't get hit until he happens to loop around into the turrets' aim when they happen to be shooting. If Bob slows down to 1km/s, he'll be moving slower than Alice's turrets can track, and he'll be vulnerable with every shot. If Bob moves at 3750m/s, or a quarter-circle every second, if he ever escapes tracking, he's likely to stay that way for a while due to the synchronized speeds. Links * EVE Online Player Guide: Fighting * Flash Tracking Demonstration - Has incorrect math (assumes one radian = full circle, instead of 2Ï€ radians = full circle)